I’m with David on this one. Distinguishing between “real” and random effects is what learning IS. Of course, such judgements are never more than probably true.
N Nick Thompson <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/ From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Prof David West Sent: Friday, October 8, 2021 2:49 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate David Eric Smith wrote: "I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail _any_ test for randomness. I can conceive that maybe there are people smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be one of them." But . . . . every human being does exactly that, all the time, more or less effortlessly — certainly below the threshold of "conscious" awareness. Billions of variables, including certain cell receptors "detecting" and responding to quantum effects (like changes in spin induced by magnetic fields). Some Asian philosophies (Jnana Yoga, Tibetan Tantra) and most of the Alchemical literature can be read as efforts to "decompile" this ability, make it conscious, and apply it in "ordinary reality." davew On Wed, Oct 6, 2021, at 9:28 AM, David Eric Smith wrote: Gilding the lily, since I don’t disagree with anything that has specifically been said. I have felt like, somewhere between the deliberate distortion of Emerson that reads “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” (Fun ref see https://www.lawfareblog.com/foolish-consistency-hobgoblin-little-minds-metadata-stay ) and what Scott Aaronson might call “the blankfaces of consistency”, there should be a sort of Herb Simon Watchmaker’s consistency. The ability to check a form for consistency — even if I am alert that the system within which I am checking might be subject to overruling or revision — allows me to get past one thing and go to the next. To clip together a sub-component of the watch and set it on the shelf, while assembling other sub-components, or to take the sub-components and assemble them relative to each other without having to constantly actively maintain the innards of each. To somebody with my innate limitations, that seems among the most valuable things in the world. DaveW wrote this fabulous paean to never calling anything done, some months ago. I can’t resurrect the text, and on my best living day could not compose its equal, but the gist was that sciences in which one arrives at conclusions are the pastimes of trivial minds. Real Men do anthropology, where nothing is ever closed. In a lovely rant on what a day in the life of a Real Man is like, a sentence contained a clause I am pretty sure I do have verbatim: “ . . . , juggling hundreds of variables, . . . “. I cannot juggle hundreds of variables, and produce a result that would fail _any_ test for randomness. I can conceive that maybe there are people smart enough to do that, but cannot imagine any-wise what it would feel like to be one of them. It seems it must be possible in this sense to cling to consistency like a life-raft, yet not elevate it to aa religious icon. After all, life rafts only keep you alive, and in the big sweep of things, that isn’t _all_ that important. Eric On Oct 5, 2021, at 11:56 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Yeah, I'm perfectly aligned with the freak among freaks sentiment, though I'd argue we *do* live in that world, we just deny it with our false beliefs. "The problem with communication is the illusion that it exists." But the more important part of the argument surrounds whether consistency, itself, is a matter of degree or kind. The analog world is full of graded [in]consistency. You see it a lot with artifacts resulting from welding, baking, brewing, etc. ... I even saw it often with the level 3 drafting at lockheed. Any inconsistencies resulting from our designs, the effete knowledge engineers, were *easily* overcome by the gritty on-the-ground engineers ... like smoothing out burrs or gluing together pieces that don't quite fit. In the special case of refined, crisply expressed propositions of digital computation, inconsistency finding becomes a (perhaps the) powerful tool. Debugging a serial program relies on it fundamentally. But it's softened a bit in parallel algorithms. Inconsistency is broken up into multiple, yet still crisp, types (race conditions, deadlocks, etc.). As approach "the real world" and move away from digital computation, it seems, to my ignorant eye, that [in]consistency softens more and more. Whether that softening takes the form of a countable set of types or something denser, I don't know. But it definitely takes on a different form. Discussions like Frank and EricS are having about the stability of a limit point (never mind the ontological status of that point) get at this nicely. If you change the frame entirely (e.g. move to position-momentum) and the "inconsistency" of the singularities *moves* (or disappears entirely), then a focus on consistency is not as powerful of a tool. The focus becomes one of which frame expresses the target domain "less inconsistently" ... aka with fewer exceptions to the rule. Yes, I know I've completely abused the word and its normal meaning. On 10/4/21 12:03 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote: I agree with some of that. I mentioned the dependently typed programming language as one technology to know when I am being inconsistent. It doesn't mean I stop everything to resolve the inconsistency, but I might point the headlights in some other direction to avoid the inconsistency (breadth first search instead of depth first). Inconsistency finding is a tool, and preferably a semi-automated one. I'd rather have the option of being a depth first searcher and not worry about shelter and food and health care. I'm not talented enough to be among the small number of people that can survive (adequately) doing that sort of thing. I think I wouldn't even like it in general, even if I were. I don't like being the person that says something is irrelevant because everything is irrelevant. I'd like to be a freak among billions of freaks that all admire the accomplishments of other freaks. This is not the world we live in, though. -----Original Message----- From: Friam <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$ Sent: Monday, October 4, 2021 10:16 AM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Newborn Heart Rate OK. But academia is in serious trouble, not least exhibited by the rise of populism and anti-intellectual distrust of those who might be attracted to depth-first search. Another story: At the last salon, an entomologist asked me "Why do you know so much philosophy?" My guess is he was actually trying to politely criticize my incessant concept-dropping, referring to oblique discussions that only occur amongst such depth-first people. The answer is I don't know any philosophy. I'm the worst kind of tourist, trampling endangered species while snapping selfies on my iPhone. But the deeper answer is that we don't need the academy anymore. What we need are social safety nets that facilitate the diverse exploration of the information field splayed out before us. If an unemployed snowboarder wants to do the work to propose a new theory of everything, so be it. I'm willing to sacrifice some of my income to help that happen, even if, or perhaps because it may eventually be found contradictory to some other ToE somewhere. But a consistency hobgoblin would nip that nonsense in the bud at the first hint of contradiction ... like a blankface academic advisor in some Physics department at some elitist institution. A focus on consistency is nothing more than subculture gatekeeping <https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping>. On 10/4/21 10:01 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote: In some depth first search one might find a sub-problem that was uncrackable. If it is one of 100 problems to solve, it is dumb to get hung-up on it, especially if it is of no practical significance. But it is a problem that will attract a certain kind of (autistic) academic attention as well. -- "Better to be slapped with the truth than kissed with a lie." ☤>$ uǝlƃ .-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - . 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